I have seen a program long ago about orphanges in Russia and the forgotten children there. There is another program on again tonight that everyone must see. There are over 4 million orphans and homeless children in Russia. Many don't have clothes,medicine,etc. I think something must be done to help our children and to save them from human trafficking. More awareness needs to be addressed. Please watch the video , Thanks.

I often think of those Russian orphans also. I want to get involved in something to help in some way. I watched a show on adoption and this family adopted Russian orphans (2 boys then later a girl) through a program called Bridge of Hope. They sponsor Russian children to come out for a few weeks and stay with families and all of them end up getting adopted afterwards, either by the family they stay with or someone they meet while here. It's only on the East coast, but it would be awesome to help start that on the West coast where I live.

It's a sad thing. Most of them end up with horrible adult lives also. There's not much hope for them. Meanwhile White couples here are adopting East Asian and African children by the herd.

I have seen a program long ago about orphanges in Russia and the forgotten children there. There is another program on again tonight that everyone must see. There are over 4 million orphans and homeless children in Russia. Many don't have clothes,medicine,etc. I think something must be done to help our children and to save them from human trafficking. More awareness needs to be addressed. Please watch the video , Thanks.

I totally agree! I'm happy someone started this thread. I started looking into the Russian orphan problem a few months back and was shocked to discover how bad it is. I decided after searching around for a while to sponcr a child from the Ascent Russian Orphan Aid Foundation http://www.iorphan.org/russian_orphans/index.asp .

Im constantly hearing about starving 3rd worlders but never do I hear people talk about russian children starving and living in the sewage.

Well, 4 millions of orphans and homeless children in Russia - that`s untrue. Figures are highly overestimated. Real figures are lower.
The number of homeless varies from 50,000 to 150,000 - it`s hard to have exact data in such matters.
And there are ~600,000-700,000 orphans.

Still, these numbers are surely huge.

At the same time, I`m quite sceptical about the role of the foreign funds in helping Russian orphans.
The main problem is not money or other material stuff. The problem is that most of those orphans who live in state-sponsored orphanages are so-called "hard kids". They have health, mental problems, criminal-turned brains, etc.

From all orphans, 90% are "social orphans", it means that their parents are alive. These "social orphans" consist of several main groups: children who were rejected by parents because of great disabilities (these rejecting parents are rarely normal in social terms); children who were rejected by parents because their parents are drunks / drug users who don`t really care; and a large group of children who were taken to orphanages because their parents lost their parental rights due to family violence, drug using, alcoholism, etc. The last group usually brings children who already reached shooling age, and already were raised in environment that wasn`t suited for raising good citizens.

All healthy little kids are adopted inside of the country; that`s why western adopters, unlike they do it illegally, have to adopt disabled children.

So, when we have a typical orphanage with 7-16 yo children, many of whom started their life here, already being introduced to vodka and other such stuff, sophisticated toilet is not the main thing to socialize them.

Our state doesn`t care about these kids, although we have a good example from the past, from the Soviet Russia of 1920s, where number of real, and not social orphans was huge after the WWI, Civil War and the typho epidemy.They were socialized pretty well, although were often taken to the orpanages from street gangs. Just state program was good. But that`s another story.

Also, ask yorself: why do those who try to raise funds tell you 4 million number?
For example, that`s what they write here:http://www.iorphan.org/russian_orphans/index.asp
"Millions of Russian children are on the run living on the streets or in underground sewers desperately needing basic food, medicine and clothes."

Millions of homeless children! Can you imagine this in a 145-million country? It means they are a natural picture from the typical landscape in every big Russian city, and every day you can see tens of them. But, I assure you, there is no such apocalypse.

To resume, once again: donation will surely not make things worse, though they hardly can do things really better. Today`s problem with Russian orphans can be solved by something like a 1917-year revolution, not by money.

I have always wanted to adopt a child. But I have heard many horror stories about people getting attached to a child and spending thousands just to get denied. Why do they make it so hard and so costly to those who want to help?

I even went as far to call the state I live in about the kids who need parents and homes but was warned that most of them had many psychological problems. It is also much cheaper to adopt here.

I recently went to my towns weekend festival and saw a booth for children who needed families. They had their pictures posted up on display and 90% of them were black kids. I have 4 kids of my own: 12yrs, 7yrs, 3yrs and 2yrs old. I feel I have room for one more but it is just a hassle (understandably so to some point) of going through the process. Maybe in 5 or 6 more years I'll reconsider it.